“I could dance with you until the cows come home. On second thought, I’d rather dance with the cows until you come home.” –Groucho Marx

Greetings Dear Ones,

In keeping with my February “Love Stories” theme, I thought I would share with you two of the biggest (and ever getting bigger) loves of my life.

Get up early and come with me to the barn… Gus and Otie are out, no matter what the weather, waiting at the corner of the paddock fence, gazing intently at the house, waiting for us to appear. With frost on their whiskers, snow on their eyelashes, or drizzling moonlight or rain on their necks, they wait. With stoic indifference, knees locked, they stand, unshivering. Their horns have a pearly shine in the starlight; their heads are wreathed in steam from their nostrils; their night eyes like liquid glitter. Suddenly, their bodies tense, necks rise. Their gaze intensifies. Dark longing pours like smoke from their black eyes and coils its tendrils around us, pulling us closer. No one can make “cow eyes” at a potential lover like a Jersey steer awaiting his breakfast. It’s us! We are on the way. Huge, Hungry Rejoicing radiates around them, unlocking them, breaking them into movement. The wait is over!

Pause…

Doesn’t it feel good to be greeted with so much wordless glee? Their Gladness permeates the thickest Carhartt jacket. When in your life does the very sight of you and all you represent attract so much attention, so much undiluted adoration?

In a festival of happy urgency and clumsiness, they hop, clomp and plod their way around the back of the barn so that when you and I enter, they are already hanging over their half door, waiting to greet us, as if they had been there all along. Otie has to eat first, because he is a bit of a bully. He’s like that exuberant kid you meet at the beach who wants to play with you but can’t help stepping all over your sand castle and getting sand in your hair. Let’s put his feed tub on the ground and pour the meal into it and while he is taking his first gulps, put two strong things around his neck—the first is your arms. Big hug. Inhale. Doesn’t he smell lovely? His fur is so soft against your cheek. I usually kiss him too, but you don’t have to if you are feeling shy. The second is a big black collar made of reinforced two inch nylon webbing. He needs to be tied up while he eats or he will steal all of Gus’s food and humble Gus with stand by and let him. Silly Gus. He’s a lover, not a fighter.

Next we feed Gus. He knows that as soon as Otie is collared, it’s safe for him to venture in to his side of the stall to receive his rations. Meekly, he saunters in and smiles at his empty tub. Tell him to back up and he will. He takes two steps back and waits while you throw his food into the tub, then rushes to begin lapping it up. He gets a tiny bit more food because he is skinnier and not as greedy as Otie. He does not need to be tied up to eat, since he never steals. He stays on his own side, working his own pile of hay with his jaws after finishing his grain. He pulls vast mouthfuls in with his tongue and grinds it happily. The swallows look like tennis balls gliding up and down the interior of his neck. Now it’s safe for you to go into the pen and hug them both. Gus will ignore you, mostly, though he will give evidence of his pleasure if you scratch just the right spots. He loves to have his chest, underbelly and bum scratched—all the places he cannot reach himself. He shows his delight by arching, expanding, leaning in, or delicately extending his tail.

Otie is desperate for attention. He will pause from eating and glare over to see what Gus is getting that he is not. He keeps track in order to make sure you give him equal measure. Scratch him along his spine and he will turn and wrap his muscled neck around you like a hug. Find a “spot” he likes and he will lick you steadily, in a mutual grooming act. He will even hold out a hind leg so that you can reach his under belly more easily. His tongue sounds and feels like 60 grit sandpaper. If we leave too soon, he will stop eating and hang over the door and make a forlorn sound. It’s a short, gutteral “Mmm..” —he doesn’t put the “ooo” in the “Moo”—just to register his concern. He knows how much love he should get with his breakfast and he does not like to be cut short.

As we get the wheel barrow, he will rush anxiously to the limits of his tether to make sure that we are not going too far. He is relieved when we return with the wheelbarrow and pitchfork. It’s time to muck the pen, while they are otherwise distracted with their food. He turns back to his hay with renewed attention. We can move all around them, fluffing the clean bedding and removing the frozen cow pies that clatter like blocks of wood as they land in the wheelbarrow. When the stall is clean and their water is fresh and full, it’s time to dump the manure out by the apple tree and put everything away. I like a tidy barn. Everything has a place. The baling twine goes over that hook on the side of the ladder to the loft, the forks hang on the pegs by the water pump. Next, we rake up the aisle and clear away any loose hay. Otie observes the proceedings with satisfaction. He likes to know what is going on. Predictable routine soothes all animals.

Are you having fun yet? This is what it is like to have two two-year-old steers in winter. They cannot understand why we do not take them out and work them. They love to work. But the ice on the driveway is treacherous. Their cloven feet cannot manage it. We will have to wait for Spring, for mud, to drag the tires around. Please, come back then!

Then, you can lead one and I will lead the other. I’ll take Otie, since he is a bit “pushy” and apt to drag you off towards the nearest green grass. Gus is the Opposite of pushy. Gus quits at the first sign of trouble. He will just lock his legs and nothing will move him. When he was a baby, he used to throw himself on the ground in a “Jersey Flop” when he did not want to do something. It was his version of a very limp tantrum. Gus, whom I sometimes call “Gussie Finknottle,” after a P.G. Wodehouse character, is of elegant breeding. He comes from a fancy farm, known for its show animals, in middle VT. His fur is finer than Otie’s, and his front legs splay out in what a Highland dancer would call proper “turn-out,” though it is not desired conformation in a bovine, as his toes wear unevenly. It’s a good thing he will never really have to work for a living. He’s tall and Delicate, with dainty, high society bone structure, and a proclivity to diarrhea. By contrast, Otie is more working class. He hails from a local dairy. He’s stocky, strong, stout. His bowels churn out cannon balls. Everything about him is rugged. They are both intelligent—Gus in a dreamy, absent minded way, Otie in a very focused, determined sort of way. I’m pretty sure that Otie could figure out a Rubix Cube if he had a way of manipulating it properly with his hooves.

In the Spring, they might have outgrown their yoke and need a new one. Working Cattle go through as many as seven or eight different sizes before they finish growing. We’ll see… I can’t wait for the warm mornings to come again when we can yoke them at sunrise and get in a workout before the rest of the day takes off and I have to report to the tailoring shop to yoke myself to the sewing machine and wrestle gowns and trousers uphill until supper time.

You and I, we’ll tie each lad to the hitching post, their noses the same width apart as when they are in the yoke, and give them a good grooming before we hitch them up. Grab a stiff brush and go for it! They love this part the most. Rub the fur vigorously in all directions then smooth it down with softer strokes, following the growth lines. They love being pampered. Just look at those silly expressions of pure bliss on their faces when we clean their ears out with recycled baby wipes, cocking their heads first to one side then the other to lean into the pleasure. (I’m sure my boys have the cleanest ears in all the land!) Then they stand with patient interest as we carefully sand the rough spots of their horns and coat them in a homemade mixture of Vaseline, beeswax, and citronella to keep the horn flies away. Horn flies will bite off flakes of the horns and weaken and disfigure them. We go through one primping routine after another. Like teenagers, they cannot get enough. Let’s groom them until they relax enough to burp up a wad of cud and chew it.

We never load the yoke on their necks when they are anything but willing and relaxed. I want every interaction with us humans to involve Repose or Relief. So far, the only trauma these two have ever faced is the day they found out the electric fence means business. (And they taught that to themselves in a matter of two zaps each.) There is enough pain in this world already—the universal pain that we are each working at lifting up—to think of ever causing more.

Now for the best part of any day, ever… There is a soft animal in each of us, hidden in the core of our innermost self. This animal has not always been treated kindly and longs to be at peace in its herd. I invite you to place your animal body between these two giants and feel them press into you from both sides until you are sandwiched tightly between warmth, muscle and fur. Isn’t that Comforting?? Feel all of you Breathe. You are safe. You Belong. Can you feel the sun, tracing your face with honeyed fingers? Can you feel the pulse of their gentle cudding vibrate from their slowly moving jaws all the way through each heartbeat, each breath, each sinew transmitting micro-movements? And beneath that, can you feel yourself enfolded in a greater soft Stillness? There is nowhere to go. There is nothing to do. Just BE in this moment , in this “hug” they are giving you, as one of “them.” Be here in the center of your untouched Beauty. Just stand there in the Light, pressed between two steers and feel the Love. Remember Love?

We are each guided into our depths by our inner Longings. Beneath the flurries, flies and Noise of Life, lies this unaffected Presence of the Infinite and universal heartbeat. Even when we feel gutted by the toil of our burdens, the filthiness of our chores, we are not just Held, but Lifted. Love shows is the truth underneath it all.

In some places, cows are considered sacred and worshipped. In Hinduism, the cow is venerated as a sacred being, believed to represent divine and natural beneficence. I totally understand.

In Vermont, young bullocks are merely a byproduct of the dairy industry. In order for a cow to give milk, she must have a calf every year. It costs the farmers an average of $25 per calf to have them loaded on trucks and hauled away to feed lots where they will be fed until slaughter. Most are only given moments with their mothers. Some receive her first milk, the vital colostrum that bolsters their survival rate, and that’s it. When I called around to find out where I could get two calves to raise as working steers, I was told to show up and put one in the back of my car and take it home for free. I’d SAVED that farmer money.

Standing in the sun, dozing at the hitching post, being spoiled like moo-vie stars, these boys have no idea that they should not be here, that only a quirk of chance, of Fate, of curiosity, impulse, and Luck grants them this precious life and an adoring Servant providing them all the hay they can munch at her own expense.

Is the Miracle any different for the rest of us?

I have learned as much about Loving from these two beloved steers as I ever have in any relationship. Life comes with a tremendous amount of work, misunderstanding, hardship, and betrayal of our spirits. Some days I am definitely Moo-dy; I like cows and maybe, three other people at most… I don’t handle people as well as I do animals and the human I have the most contact with is my own dear self, who can be a total Jersey Flop at times. Standing between these dozing, chewing bulls pulls me back to Love—to my infinite connection with everything, and everyone, especially the small, soft, gentle animal in me. Though we are strangers to one another, we are kindred spirits. There is no difference in our hearts. We are all present in the name of being Alive. In the quiet peace of the grassy orchard, we come together to dwell in the Divine Gift of Being, learning to heal what was accidentally scarred or broken. We come to Give, to Learn, to Receive, to know all the itchy spots of our Beloved…

…and to Mend.

With Love as Big as A Cow,

Yours aye,

Moo